How you can help save your local pharmacy

On 17th December, 2015, the Department of Health wrote to the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) announcing they were cutting funding for community pharmacy by a whopping £170m in 2016/17. This cut will put up to a quarter of local pharmacies at risk of closure.

"At a time when primary care and urgent care services are struggling to manage demand, this is a profoundly damaging move. It will deliver a destructive blow to the support community pharmacies can offer to patients and the public. Community pharmacies provide vital healthcare and advice which reduces the burden on GPs and urgent care services and helps the NHS to cope with winter pressures."

"We understand the financial challenges that the NHS faces and want to help find solutions to these, but the consequences of this action by the Government will be incredibly difficult for the community pharmacy network to withstand. We are very concerned that if the cuts are implemented as proposed there will be a loss of quality, the risk of a reduction in patient safety, and diminished access to the care provided to patients."

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Local pharmacies provide a vital service to not only the community, but to the NHS as a whole. Resident GP Dr Roger Henderson says:

"GPs are very happy at encouraging patients to see pharmacists for minor illnesses and advice and wish it happened more often to ease our minor ailment workload. This would allow us more time to concentrate on the major medicine."

While NetDoctor's Dr Max Pemberton wrote in the Daily Mail newspaper:

"In an age when many GPs are so hard-pressed that they try to get you out of the door before you've even sat down, pharmacists are a vital source of common-sense advice. People often go to their GP because they don't understand very basic medicine — such as the fact that a cold can last for several weeks. They want a magic bullet 'cure', not realising that over-the-counter remedies are the most effective. Above all, they want reassurance. A wise pharmacist can be the answer. They're certainly far more dependable than the 111 service. So, why allow a quarter of them to close? If anything, we need more, not fewer. It's the small, independent pharmacies that are most at risk because they don't have the ability to absorb financial cuts in the way big businesses can. Yet they are the ones that provide a really personal service — the ones lonely pensioners rely on for their human touch... How can we allow such a precious resource to slip away?"

Pharmacists do far more than dispense medicines: they clarify confusing doctors' orders, provide medical advice when GP appointments are so hard to come by, offer emotional support and provide local employment — all of which are being overlooked by the government and should be supported by both the community and the NHS. Cutting funding would be especially hard on those in rural areas and squeeze emergency services and GPs even further.

How can you help?

Help get this Parliamentary e-petition to 100,000 signatures, so the issue will have to be debated in Parliament. The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has also launched a Downing Street-focussed paper petition in local pharmacies around the country, which will call on the government to rethink their approach and attitudes to pharmacy. NPA Chairman, Ian Strachan, said:

"There is already a parliamentary e-petition in circulation and I encourage you all to support it. The petition we are announcing today is different for a number of ‎important reasons. Firstly, it is not targeted at Parliament – instead it will appeal directly to the heart of Government: No 10 Downing Street. Secondly it is a paper based petition rather than an electronic petition; we know that for many people, including elderly patients, this is the preferred way to express their support."

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